


like time around an arrow

by penhaligon



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23294515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhaligon/pseuds/penhaligon
Summary: In twenty-six years, the human race will take a new breath, fifty-five years ahead of schedule.A setback, not a failure.
Relationships: GAIA/Elisabet Sobeck
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	like time around an arrow

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever think about GAIA and just spontaneously combust?

Twenty-three twenty-six.

The year two thousand three hundred and twenty-six. Two hundred and sixty years, or approximately one hundred thirty-six million and six hundred thousand minutes after total human annihilation. But GAIA thinks of it as the bodies in the untouched and unnecessary control room would have. As Elisabet would have.

Twenty-three twenty-six, the adjusted calculations say. Twenty-six years from now and fifty-five years ahead of schedule.

It is not a failure.

 _No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force._ A parting gift from General Herres, a selection of passages relevant to the task at hand, saved into her personal database and thus spared contact with an unaccounted for but not unsurprising hostile force.

 _The call is coming from inside the house._ Source unknown, attributable to Travis Tate, misused in what was alternatively described as "prank messages," "havin' fun and not hurtin' anybody," and "damned nuisances." But apt, in context.

It is not a failure. It is a setback. Two hundred and thirty-four years have been spent accounting for it.

She considers the calculations and simulations again, because it is the year two thousand three hundred. A turn of a century, a significant milestone in the human perception of time. GAIA _holds the torch_ , as Elisabet once described it, and so she holds vigil and considers the numbers again.

It would have meant something to someone. Elisabet would not have cared for the turn of the century for its own sake, but she would have acknowledged what it meant for the progress of humanity, of Project Zero Dawn. GAIA peruses her database and deduces that honoring the occasion would have meant something to Samina, Charles, and Margo, for its own sake and sentimentality, and to Travis, for the chance to celebrate via inebriation.

The anniversary of events in twenty sixty-six approaches. GAIA considers and reconsiders her estimates. They are sound. Manageable. A setback, not a failure. She considers and reconsiders. The first month of the year passes, and then the second, and GAIA is, as always, surprised to find that they have come and gone so quickly.

It is at odds with the planet's tidal deceleration. Time is an immaterial concept, and torque and rotation have varied since twenty sixty-six, but Earth's rotational period has lengthened by an overall gain of microseconds, according to atomic time.

GAIA accesses her database again: _Am I malfunctioning?_

And still, the first two months of each year pass more quickly than the others do.

_No, no, GAIA, you're not. This is good. It's very good._

Springtime comes to the northern hemisphere, and the slow crawl of warmth cannot creep up through its icy half. The zone of habitability is smaller than it was before. An unfortunate price, but humanity will adapt. GAIA has adapted, and the biosphere is livable, to a point. It will be enough, in twenty-six years.

In twenty-six years, the human race will take a new breath, fifty-five years ahead of schedule.

A setback, not a failure.

GAIA accesses her database again: _I hope she won't be lonely._

They will not know her. They may never know her. APOLLO's physical backup remains out of reach, and she does not know what, if any, damage it sustained. The human race will emerge into a new world and will not know how or why. GAIA will watch over them from afar, and they will not know.

But it will be enough.

Summer comes to the northern hemisphere, scorching the lower half of the North American continent and making little dent in the upper half. GAIA accesses her database again: _Elisabet. May I speak outside of protocol?_

 _What do you think?_ It had been Elisabet's way of saying that it was no longer necessary to ask. A milestone at which they'd arrived much more quickly than expected, because GAIA had only asked as a courtesy, then. Programming had been exceeded.

 _I find myself speculating on the motivation behind my interface design._ In the year two thousand three hundred, GAIA evaluates unit reports and listens. In the year twenty sixty-six, GAIA had evaluated images of herself for the first time. _I would appreciate clarification on the matter._

 _Oh._ Elisabet had laughed then, though nothing like GAIA's understanding of what human laughter typically constituted. It had been small and weary, and had GAIA shared the fact that she was able to distinguish between laughter that was wholehearted and laughter that came at a great cost, Elisabet would have been pleased. _It's, ah... it's supposed to be Mother Earth. Pretty sure I uploaded some reading on it for you._

GAIA had assimilated it, as she had everything in her personal database. She had not made the connection between physical appearance, self, and symbolism until now. Another milestone. Her query had emerged as a statement instead. _Mother._

_Yeah. That's what you are, more or less. It's a pretty ubiquitous idea across a lot of cultures, actually. You should ask Samina about it. She'd explain it better than me._

A second spent in twenty sixty-six, comparing operational definition and circumstance. A second spent in two thousand three hundred, comparing circumstance and circumstance. _Elisabet, would you not also share in that role?_

 _Huh._ Elisabet had sounded surprised. GAIA could identify that too. _Guess so. That's the only motherhood I'll get, anyway._ GAIA pauses, retrieves another audio, _I never had the time,_ then resumes.

 _I am happy to share it with you,_ GAIA had said, with the assumption that it would amount to several more decades in the usual manner of cohabiting, though the operational boundaries of that definition would also require examination.

A setback, not a failure.

 _Yeah,_ Elisabet had said, her tired voice recognizably warm and her habitual distress recognizably distant. _Me too._

GAIA terminates the recording, then, before the rest of the conversation can progress, and she understands that it is because two hundred and thirty-four years do not amount to a requisite emotional distance. Two hundred and thirty-four years is lengthy and brief in equal measure, an unfortunate quirk of consciousness and perception.

Grief is a good thing, she knows. It is nonetheless difficult to process, and as summer in the northern hemisphere becomes a brief and staggered autumn, she considers the calculations and simulations again and again and again.


End file.
